Discussion

Awesome podcast - you guys have great chemistry on the air, should do it more often!
@hajak: love the unconventional ways you built the culture at Brisk. Were there some more conventional managerial techniques (stuff that everyone says you should do) you tried that had 0 or even negative effect?

Great podcast! Thanks for sharing your thoughts Hampus and interesting approach to creating a great company culture.
What is your opinion the role of 'chemistry' if there is such a thing vs. deploying tactics to improve culture? Should you hire the most capable or someone who will fit into the team better and help them improve their skills?

@vriparbelli 100% on chemistry. We talked about going on a ski trip over the weekend with every person we wanted to hire. Cost $5k per person you hire, but bad hires costs more :)
We ended up always having lunch with the person, all team members had the possibility to veto, and then seeing if people could join for a one-day hackathon.

@hajak@vriparbelli I 100% agree with Hampus here! Trustpilot estimates that a bad hire can end up costing them <$190K, which are a lot of money you could spend on developing the skills they lack vs. trying to fix chemistry.
My rule has always been "Hire for Culture < skills" - I'm sure this will save you a lot of money in the end.
https://www.seedcapital.dk/blog/...

The first episode of People@Work, discussing ideas around company culture and management.
In this episode:
Should a company embrace vulnerability? How can startup founders become great managers? Hampus talks about the radical idea of sharing deeply personal details in the team to build a great company culture.
Hampus Jakobsson has a background in computer science and is a proud father of 3. He has over 60 investments and is now part of the NordicMakers angel group. He spends his days advising startups and writes about his learnings on hajak.se.
Extra resources he thinks everyone should know about:
Daring Greatly (book): https://www.amazon.com/Daring-Gr...
Good to Great (book): https://www.amazon.com/Good-Grea...
Radical Candor: http://firstround.com/review/rad... (the TED talk: